


How Not to Make a Deal With Your Personal Demon

by devil_may_care_00



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Demon Dean Winchester, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devil_may_care_00/pseuds/devil_may_care_00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Braeden needs to make a deal.  He's not afraid of Hell, and he's not afraid of demons either.  Especially not this demon, with a familiar face, and an odd grudge against the system he works for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Not to Make a Deal With Your Personal Demon

The young man scraped the last bits of gravel over the box. He stood, and waited anxiously, his heart pounding in his throat. Mere seconds dragged on like hours. Luckily, crossroads demons are never late.

“Son, just don’t. It’s not worth it,” a deep voice rasped from his rear, startling him. Ben whipped his head around, coming face to face with his own personal demon. It was a burly man, broad shoulders, bow legs, light brown hair, and black eyes. The man blinked once, his black eyes shifting into emerald green ones. Ben gaped at him.

“Do I know you?” he said, before he could stop himself. Ben could’ve sworn a look of nostalgia passed across the demon’s face, but he couldn’t be sure. 

“I have one of those faces,” the demon replied, his voice strained. 

Ben took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. He wasn’t here to fret over who the demon reminded him of, he was here for one thing, and one thing only. 

“I—ahem—I’d like to make a deal,” he choked out, standing up a little straighter, like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, with those few words. The man—no, the demon—the demon stared at him, his familiar features unchanging, except for the raise of one eyebrow. 

“I’d like to make a deal,” Ben said again, more confident this time. The demon took a slow step towards him, and then another. 

“Oh I heard you the first time kid,” he said, his piercing eyes never leaving Ben’s face, even for a second. “But maybe you didn’t hear me. Don’t.” He was closer now, much closer than Ben would’ve liked, if it had been anybody else. But for some reason, beyond his knowledge, this demon didn’t scare him. 

“I have to,” Ben whispered. He felt tears prick at the back of his eyes, but he’d be damned if he was going to cry like a bitch in front of a demon. Of course, if he got his way, he would be damned, but he wasn’t a bitch. 

The demon frowned at him. “Whatever you want, fame, fortune, sex, love, none of it is worth an eternity in—“

“I don’t want any of that!” Ben yelled, his voice breaking. The demon blinked, almost shocked at his outburst. He took another step towards Ben, they were almost nose to nose now. 

“Then what the hell do you want?” he asked, his voice low, dangerous. Ben gulped. 

“I—I just want my mom to not be sick anymore, okay? I want her to be healthy, and happy, and live until at least 85, and I want her to get a dog, and plant flowers and—“ 

“What’s she have?” the demon interrupted his rambling. Ben gasped for breath.

“What?” he asked dumbly.

“I said, what’s she have?” the demon repeated, his voice dangerously low again.

“Cancer,” he replied quietly, casting his eyes towards the ground. The demon sighed, raking his hand through his already messy hair in a familiar gesture, which was almost comforting to Ben. 

“How long?” Ben heard him ask. Ben looked back up at him, confused.

“Excuse me?” he asked, his brow furrowed

“How long does she have?” the demon repeated, his voice bordering on gentleness. 

“What’s it matter to you anyway?” Ben spat, glaring at the demon. 

“Call me curious,” the demon responded coolly. Ben looked down again. 

“Any day now,” he whispered. The demon sighed again, rubbing his face with his hands. 

“You’re what, sixteen?” he questioned.

“Uh, yes sir,” Ben responded timidly. 

“Don’t call me sir. My father, the bastard, was sir. Call me Dean,” the demon—Dean said. 

“Okay… Dean,” The name slid out of his mouth easily, like he’d been saying it all his life. A weird sense of déjà vu washed over the boy, but he ignored it, diverting his attention to the matter at hand. Dean was walking away from him. 

“Hey!” Ben yelled. “HEY!” he ran after him, but Dean kept walking.

“Sorry kid, I don’t make deals with minors,” he called over his shoulder. Ben caught up to him, and grabbed his arm, spinning the demon around to face him.

“Please,” Ben begged. Dean met the young man’s eyes with his green ones, which flashed back to black when he said the one word Ben couldn’t bear to hear. 

“No.” And then Ben was grasping at nothing, because Dean was gone. 

He stood there for a long time, not crying, not screaming, not feeling anything really, except for the crushing weight of failure. Eventually, he dug up the box, and made his way home to bed, where he stayed, until the next night, he got up, and tried again at different cross road.  
***  
Every night, Ben drove to a new crossroad, buried the box, and waited for a demon to show up. Every night, the same thing happened. Nothing. He tried for months. No demon ever came when he summoned them. It was like they were avoiding him, or someone in hell was making damn sure that Ben Braeden would not get his deal. 

In between trips to cross roads, school, and restless nights trying to think of solutions to his problem, Ben visited his mother in the hospital. These days, she was almost always strung out on some sort of medication, anything the doctors could think of that would prolong her life. More often than not, the medication brought on vivid hallucinations, of everything from angels standing over her, to vampires wheeling carts of blood bags down the hall. Recently though she’d been telling her son about her favorite hallucination, the handsome man in a leather jacket with nice eyes, that visited her, and took her pain away. She said he told her stories about men that fought monsters, and about heroic demons, and villainous angels. 

When her cancer went into remission, Ben was over joyed. Lisa swore up and down that the handsome man had saved her life. Ben almost believed her when about a year later, a stray dog wandered into her garden. It was a boxer. They called him Colt.


End file.
